Halloween Fun

A local church here in town puts on a yearly "Orange Festival" which is basically a free evening of games, trunk-or-treating, blow up bounce houses, and just plane old good fun for the whole family.  The highlight of the evening was eating our first ever fried oreo cookies.  I was a skeptic, but Josh had heard the were delicious, so we tried them (not a lot to risk here, as fried food is usually good stuff).  Wow, they were awesome!  The oreos were coated in funnel cake batter and then fried, and the result is probably the best tasting thing ever.
The boys enjoyed dressing up, playing games, and collecting treats.  Josh and I, once again, had a great time watching them.   We usually recycle costumes, and since ours were geared toward Nebraska Halloweens (usually cold), I was worried we might have some heat stroke issues, but the boys ended up being fine (although pretty sweaty!).  Will was the bumble bee that Henry had been as a baby, and Sean was the same monkey he was last year, and Henry was a very proud firefighter.

And here they are heading out to trick-or-treat.  They had a fantastic time and got way too much candy.

Pier Fishing

We have tried to make the most of the fishing in Florida, and in doing so, we have visited some fishing piers for some ocean fishing.  In our first few months here, we drove to Navarre, Florida, to visit the pier and beaches there.  Navarre is about 45 minutes West of us, but totally worth the drive.  There is a fee to fish the pier, or walk the pier, and they also rent heavy duty fishing poles and gear for those of us who don't own the proper pier/ocean fishing gear.  On our first visit, we did not catch any fish, but we had a blast learning how to fish off of the pier, and we enjoyed the scenery.  For those of you who don't know, since I can remember, I have LOVED dolphins.  So, as we were driving to Navarre, I was having dreamy thoughts of having a dolphin sighting.  Well, as we were walking down the pier trying to find the perfect spot to cast our lines, Josh said, "there is  a dolphin!"  The dolphin was so close, and it was AMAZING!  The water was incredibly clear and we watched this dolphin play and chase a fish until it finally ate it, and eventually swam off.  It made my day, and the boys were so excited.  Here she is swimming off.

And here are some other photos from our first and second visit (we took my dad when he was here back in August).  Oh, and the second time we came, with my dad, my dad and I spotted a dolphin just as we were leaving!

That fish on the end of the line is bait, not a catch

This is a bit blurry, but you can see Will & I on the left, Josh & Sean on the right, and Henry in the middle

Most recently, we visited the Fort Walton Beach Pier.  The pier itself isn't as nice as the Navarre pier, but it is closer to where we live and the beach is better.  We arrived late morning, and we had no expectations of seeing dolphins on that occasion.  Shortly after we arrived, we noticed a few dolphins swimming on one side of the pier.  Little did we know, that for the entire three hours we were there, we would be watching dolphins on either side of the pier (including a mom and her baby)!!  We probably saw at least ten different dolphins, but they took turns hanging around the pier doing their own fishing.  And further out, there were three dolphins jumping and playing around for about 30 minutes.  I had never seen them jump in the wild, so that was another special treat!  Apparently, the fishermen don't care for the dolphins swimming around and scaring all of the fish away, but I was LOVING it!  This is one of dolphins that we saw:

We also saw our first and second sea turtles.  They are just a dark, circular blob in the water, but, when they surface, they are pretty amazing looking.  It surprised Josh and how large they are, and cool they were.

So, apparently the whole point of this adventure wasn't about the dolphins or sea turtles, it was to go fishing.  We did do some of that, and Josh caught our biggest catch as of yet.  Here she is:

Josh reeling in our big catch (called a Ladyfish or Skipjack).  The boys were so excited, and cheering so loud for their dad!

Taking a break.  Disclaimer: they ate from the community bag of chips prior to holding any bait or fish!

Even Will had to take a little break from fishing and dolphin watching